The Church of St. Michael is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

under the authority of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn The Diocese of Brooklyn is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the U.S. state of New York. It is headquartered in Brooklyn and its territory encompasses the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. T ...

, located at 352 42nd Street at Fourth Avenue in the Sunset Park neighborhood of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Before the founding of St. Michaels's parish in 1870, Catholics in the area had to travel to mass at either St. John the Evangelist at 21st St. or St. Patrick's in Fort Hamilton. The first pastor was Rev. Michael J. Hickey.Lafort, Remigius. "St. Micahel's, Brookly, N.Y.", ''The Catholic Church in the United States'', New York. The Catholic Editing Company, 1914, p. 571
/ref> The current church was built 1905, and was designed by noted church architect

Raymond F. Almirall Raymond F. Almirall (1869–1939) was an American architect of the Beaux-Arts period, practicing in New York City. Life and career Almirall was born in New York in 1869. He studied architecture at Cornell University and at the Ecole des Beau ...

. The exterior is in early Romanesque. Often referred to as Brooklyn's own " Sacré-Cœur", the domed tower once was the second tallest building in Brooklyn after the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower, until a late 2000s high rise development claimed that title. St. Michael's parochial school opened in 1886; it closed in 2005.

In popular culture

The comedy film ''

Heaven Help Us ''Heaven Help Us'' (also known as ''Catholic Boys'') is a 1985 American drama film starring Andrew McCarthy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon, Malcolm Danare, Patrick Dempsey, and Stephen Geoffreys as a group of 1960s Brooklyn teenagers, wit ...

'' (1985) was filmed in the neighborhood, using external and internal shots of the church and the now closed St. Michael's Parish School as the fictional ''St. Basil's Church'' and ''St. Basil's School'', run by the factual Order of St. Basil.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Michaels Church, Brooklyn, Saint Roman Catholic churches in Brooklyn Roman Catholic churches completed in 1905 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1921 Religious organizations established in 1870 Romanesque Revival church buildings in New York City Byzantine Revival architecture in New York City 1870 establishments in New York (state) Sunset Park, Brooklyn 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States